Description: The Pilot Projects Program is administered by the Administrative Core with Dr. Peters as Director. Its stated goals are to fund small scale projects to establish feasibility for larger projects, perform validation of study methods, and to attract new investigators to the Center and allow current investigators to move in new directions. In the past four years, 20 Pilot Projects have been funded for a total of $353,563 (average approximately $18,000/project). These Pilot Projects have been instrumental in bringing in new Center investigators, as well as providing funding for new directions for current Center investigators and funding for graduate/postdoctoral fellows. The actual projects funded have been equally divided between basic science and epidemiologic research. At least two investigators have been funded twice by the Pilot Project mechanism, but in both cases, for completely different research programs.